_Note: if you see "App can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer" when opening VSCodium the first time, you can right-click the application and choose Open. This should only be required the first time opening on a Mac._
Microsoft's downloads of Visual Studio Code are licensed under [this not-FLOSS license](https://code.visualstudio.com/license) and contain telemetry/tracking. According to [this comment](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/60#issuecomment-161792005) from a Visual Studio Code maintainer:
> When we [Microsoft] build Visual Studio Code, we do exactly this. We clone the vscode repository, we lay down a customized product.json that has Microsoft specific functionality (telemetry, gallery, logo, etc.), and then produce a build that we release under our license.
>
> When you clone and build from the vscode repo, none of these endpoints are configured in the default product.json. Therefore, you generate a "clean" build, without the Microsoft customizations, which is by default licensed under the MIT license
This repo exists so that you don't have to download+build from source. The build scripts in this repo clone Microsoft's vscode repo, run the build commands, and upload the resulting binaries to [GitHub releases](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/releases). __These binaries are licensed under the MIT license. Telemetry is enabled by a build flag which we do not pass.__
If you want to build from source yourself, head over to [Microsoft's vscode repo](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode) and follow their [instructions](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/wiki/How-to-Contribute#build-and-run). This repo exists to make it easier to get the latest version of MIT-licensed VSCode.
Microsoft's build process does download additional files. This was brought up in [Microsoft/vscode#49159](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/49159) and [Microsoft/vscode#45978](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/45978). These are the packages downloaded during build:
- Extensions from the Microsoft Marketplace:
- ms-vscode.node-debug2
- ms-vscode.node-debug
- From [Electron releases](https://github.com/electron/electron/releases) (using [gulp-atom-electron](https://github.com/joaomoreno/gulp-atom-electron))
- [x] Linux x64 (`.deb`, `.rpm`, and `.tar.gz` files)
- [ ] Windows x64
- The plan is to build the Windows executable with [AppVeyor](https://appveyor.com). PRs are welcome :blue_heart:
x32 and arm architectures are not currently supported. If you know of a way to do this with Travis or any other free CI/CD platform please put in an issue or a PR.
Until something more open comes around, we use the Microsoft Marketplace/Extensions in the `product.json` file. Those links are licensed under MIT as per [the comments on this issue.](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/31168#issuecomment-317319063)
## <a id="migrating"></a>Migrating from Visual Studio Code to VSCodium
VSCodium (and a freshly cloned copy of vscode built from source) stores its extension files in `~/.vscode-oss`. So if you currently have Visual Studio Code installed, your extensions won't automatically populate. You can reinstall your extensions from the Marketplace in VSCodium, or copy the `extensions` from `~/.vscode/extensions` to `~/.vscode-oss/extensions`.
Visual Studio Code stores its `keybindings.json` and `settings.json` file in the these locations:
